In 08/10/2007, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I
don't know how to change the oil on most of my bikes, let alone
I[ve yet to meet an engine where you don't change the oil by removing t=
he
drain plug on the bottom of the sump....
And if you don't know what a sump plug is, how to find one, how to
remove one, how to refit one? If you don't know when to do it or what
to replace the oil with? If you don't know what to catch the oil in or
how to refill it?
Ah, ut you said '_most_ of my bikes' (emphassis mine). The point being
that if you can do it on one engine (OK, 2 strokes are a notable
exception), you can do it on any.
But I personally have no use for a multiuser host
machine and never
have had. A mini or even an old mainframe might be /interesting/ but I
have absolutely no function that it can perform for me, so there's not
much point in having one. I didn't aspire to own one when I was a kid
and I don't now. For me, computers got interesting when they could
display graphics, and they got pleasant and fun to *use* when they got
So obviously all the graphics systems for 1970s minis (and indeed
_calculators__) esist only in my imagination. That'll save me a lot of
space :-)
Seriosuly, there were some rather nice graphical display systems for
PDP11s,VAXen and other minis. Made both by DEC and 3rd parties.
GUIs and could multitask. I'd love to know more
about some of the
I don;t know if you call a PERQ a minicomputer (to me it is, the CPU is a
large boarf of simple logic chips, not a microprocessor), but that had a
multitasking GUI.
Let it go. You have your interests, I have mine.
I'm not telling you
you're wrong; I admire your skills and knowledge. Please stop telling
Err , couple of messages ago you described me a 'bl**dy daft'. I hardly
think that's appropritate..
-tony